Baker's Blues Read online

  She grabs her shoulder bag and slams out the back door, leaving me speechless and staring.

  “Excuse me.” Skye’s face has gone doughy white. She disappears into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her, and I hear the unmistakable sounds of vomiting.

  CM looks at me. “Have we wandered into an alternate universe?”

  A weird laughter bubbles up in my chest. In seconds, the two of us are laughing, crying, holding each other.

  That evening Skye sits at my kitchen table in her white cotton nightshirt. Twenty-three years old, lovely and bereft. We’re both too exhausted to sleep, but Charles, my seven-year-old Corgi, has no such problem. He’s curled up in her lap, snoring intermittently. I keep picturing the Valium, tucked between my bras and underpants upstairs, but I can’t do it. I can’t leave her all alone and wide awake while I take the express lane to sweet oblivion.

  I make tea and set out my good china cups, sugar and milk. There was so much food at the house today, but I had no appetite. Now I’m hungry, so I’ve put out half a loaf of raisin pumpernickel bread, salted butter, raw honey and a slab of cream cheese.

  “I…um…heard you in the bathroom. Are you okay?”

  “It was just all the junk I ate on the flight, and I drank too much wine because I couldn’t sleep.” She takes a sip of hot tea. “It’s kind of you to have me stay,” she says stiffly. “I could have booked a room.”

  “Skye, I’d hate it if you came to L.A. and didn’t stay with me. I always wanted…”

  My brain stumbles. What was it I always wanted? Some kind of closeness, I suppose. Some connection to make up for her being his child but not mine.

  She cuts a piece of bread and spreads it thickly with butter and honey. “I was going to stay with Kristin, but she has to go to New York.”

  Well, okay. After all, Kristin was there for the past year and a half. Still, it stings, and I’m reasonably sure that was the intent.

  I get up to open the French doors and the night air floods around us like cool water in the awkward silence.

  “I loved the poem you read. The Whitman.” When I touch her arm, I feel the muscle tense. As if she’d like to pull away without being rude. “I hope you know how important you were to him. I truly believe you saved his life.”

  “Bloody lot of good it did.”

  “You know, my father died of a heart attack, too. When I was seventeen.”

  “You told me before. At least you had time with him.”

  “Losing someone you love sucks, no matter how or when it happens.”

  She blots her eyes with a tissue. “I still can’t believe it. I keep expecting he’ll ring me or…something.”

  She takes a tiny bite of the bread and chews it for a ridiculous amount of time. Then tea.

  “Were you there?” she asks dully. “When your father died?”

  “He was at work. My mother came to school after lunch. They got me from biology class and walked me down to the office. The school secretary wouldn’t say anything to me. Or even look at me. But the second I saw my mother’s face, I knew.”

  “What did you do?”

  The thought sends unexpected tears brimming in my eyes.

  “I got down on the floor and started screaming. The bad thing was, I never thought about how my mother must have felt. I was just furious with her, coming to tell me that in school.”

  “Mum called me at the restaurant. It was so weird. I didn’t know what to do. I just stayed on and worked my shift. Like if I just kept on and never went home, it wouldn’t be true.”

  When she swallows more tea, I can tell by the little pucker of her mouth that it’s cold. I pour our cups into the sink and set two wineglasses on the table, retrieve a bottle of Montepulciano from my wine cabinet and fish around in a drawer for the corkscrew.

  “None for me, thanks,” she says.

  I refill her cup with tea and pour some wine for myself. “How’s your mother doing?”

  She looks at the ceiling. “We had a big row before I left. About the money and everything. She says I should put it in the farm. Upgrade our stock and equipment. Truth be told, I think what she really wants is for me to take it on. She keeps on about retiring. Her and Derek moving to Hastings.”

  “Why doesn’t she just sell it?”

  “She wants to keep it in the family,” she says. “We’re five generations on the land.”

  “Oh.”

  “The idea is for me to run the farm, marry Jack, raise sheep. And of course pop out a few sprogs to carry on the tradition.”

  I put my feet up on the chair and loop my arms over my knees. “Who’s Jack?”

  “A bloke I grew up with. His family owns a farm near ours. We were together in school, but not anymore. He just hasn’t got it through his thick head yet that I’ve outgrown him. Of course Mum keeps encouraging him.”

  “Is he the one who called earlier?”

  “No.” A slow flush creeps up under her tan. “That was…um…Trevor. We’re sort of…engaged.” She turns the cup back and forth on its saucer. “Not officially. Yet. But we will be. He manages the restaurant where I work.”

  “Maybe you and he could take over the farm and you could—”

  She grimaces. “I don’t want to raise sheep. I’m sick to my back teeth of bloody sheep. And Mum’d sooner set the whole place ablaze than see Trevor on it anyway.”

  “Why is that?”

  She scrapes more butter onto her bread. “He’s…a wee bit older than me.” Pause. “Actually, he’s thirty-six.”

  “It can be difficult, the age difference. And if there’s an ex-wife or kids…”

  “Actually…” She runs the tip of her tongue delicately along her lower lip. “She’s not exactly an ex-wife. Yet. I mean, he’s been intending to leave, but then she got pregnant.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek.

  “People can change, you know,” she says.

  “Yes, they can. The problem is, they so seldom do.”

  “No sermon, okay? Mum’s about putting me up the wall with it.”

  “Don’t worry. I believe that for better or worse, we all get to make our own mistakes.”

  “Was Mac one of yours?”

  “Well…I…it depends how you look at it. Obviously we didn’t have a…successful marriage. On the other hand, I don’t regret loving him.”

  “You must have at one point,” she says coolly, “else you wouldn’t have divorced him.”

  “It’s somewhat more complicated than that.”

  “Right.” She strokes the dog’s ears, and he twitches contentedly.

  I say, “Tomorrow I thought we’d start sorting through things at the house. Get whatever you want packed up and shipped. I’ve got a couple of appointments set up with real estate agents, a meeting with the lawyer. There’s going to be some paperwork…”

  “What about the…ashes?”

  “Did you see the tin box in the living room? With the turquoise concha?”

  “The what?”

  I go into the living room and retrieve the tin box that CM brought me from Santa Fe. “For now, they’re in here. When I can get up to Orcas I’ll take them and scatter them.”

  “I don’t understand this whole thing. Couldn’t we just bury the ashes? At least he’d have a proper grave and a stone…some place you could go and lay flowers or…whatever. If he’s in the water, he’s just…gone. Nowhere.”

  “I can put some of them in a separate container for you, if you want.”

  Her eyes can be disconcertingly like his. “Don’t you find it a wee bit strange? Dividing him up into little packages?”

  I breathe in deliberately, then a controlled exhale . “What you or I find strange is beside the point. This is what he wanted and I promised him I’d do it. I can put some of the ashes in a small container for you and you can bury them or keep them or whatever you—”

  “Maybe I can get a T-shirt, too. One that says I went to L.A. and all I got was this T-shirt and three gram
s of my father in a box.”

  “Skye…I’m doing the best I can.”

  There are a few quiet seconds before her face crumples like a piece of paper and she puts her head down on the table and cries. I want to touch her shoulder or hold her hand, but ever since she arrived, there seems to be some invisible boundary, like those electronic dog fences, something I can’t cross.

  “You must be tired. Maybe you should get some sleep?”

  She raises her teary face. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Why don’t you go stretch out on the couch then. I’m going to have another glass of wine and by that time maybe we’ll both be ready for bed.”

  She arranges herself on the couch with Charles and the comforter and before I’ve finished my second glass, they’re both asleep.

  I wake up in my clothes, on top of my un-slept-in bed with dog breath in my face, a pounding headache, and a purple tongue. I remember helping Skye into the guestroom bed, locking up and turning the lights off before I passed out.

  I’m brewing espresso and cleaning up last night’s dishes when the doorbell rings, sending Charles into a barking frenzy. Tyler is standing on my front porch, looking like she’d rather be shoveling dog poop with a teaspoon.

  “Don’t say it,” she says before I can get out a word. “My bad. Out of line. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, that sounds heartfelt.”

  “Peace.” She thrusts a white paper sack at me. “I’m not sorry I thought it, but I’m sorry I said it out loud. In front of…” She looks around. “Xena, Warrior Princess.”

  “Her name is Skye. And whatever problem you had with her father, it has nothing to do with her.”

  She puts her palms together and bows over them. “I know. It’s just every time I think about all the shit he put you through, it makes me furious. And now you’re having to be her nanny and I bet he didn’t leave you a buck ninety-five. Am I right?”

  “Come on, Ty—”

  “Come on, what? She’s a big girl. If she has to have a babysitter, why can’t Krisss-tin do it?” She flutters her eyelashes.

  The dentist said not to grind my teeth, but sometimes I just can’t help it. “First, Kristin’s in New York—”

  “Convenient.”

  “Second, I’m the executor of Mac’s estate. It’s my responsibility to—”

  “Good morning.”

  Skye is standing in the kitchen doorway, looking daisy fresh because she was smart enough to drink tea last night.

  Tyler jumps into the breach. “Skye, I came to apologize for my…outburst yesterday. I’m sorry if I—”

  “You’ve a right to your opinion.” She walks past us to pour herself a cup of coffee.

  “Well…I’m heading back to work.” Tyler sticks her hands into her jeans pockets and looks at me. “I don’t guess we’ll be seeing you today.”

  “I might stop by this afternoon. This morning we’re going over to the house to start cleaning out everything. I was hoping you and János could come to dinner Friday night?”

  “We’d like to,” she says unconvincingly, “But I’ll have to check my calendar. I’ll call you later.”

  She heads for the door.

  Little beast.

  The assault of memory begins with the scent of eucalyptus and crushed peppercorns on a warm, dry breeze from the canyon. I open the car windows and drive slowly down the shade-dappled street. The neighborhood is quiet, grownups gone to work and kids at school.

  Skye hasn’t said a word on the drive over. She stares out the window, absently rolling the fringe of her woven belt between her fingers. We park in the garage and carry empty boxes into the kitchen. She goes back to the car for wrapping paper and tape while I stand still. Looking.

  The air is heavy with memories.

  Our old dog Brownie waiting patiently just inside the kitchen door. My garden, splashed with bright annuals. Mac sitting at the umbrella table drinking coffee and drying off after a morning swim.

  I peer out the window over the sink.

  The jacaranda tree is huge now. I recall the argument with our next door neighbors who wanted us to take it down because of the clouds of purple blossoms that blew onto their deck every spring. And the mourning doves who populated it. Mac said they were stupid birds who did nothing but breed and shit, but I found their cries melancholy and romantic.

  Skye doesn’t want anything from the kitchen, so we wrap it all in newsprint and pack it in boxes for the hospice store. Nor does she have any interest in the furniture. We originally discussed having an “estate sale” but neither of us liked the thought of watching strangers pick through all his stuff, so in the end we agreed to donate everything to Furniture Bank and Goodwill.

  After a quick and mostly silent lunch of the ham and provolone sandwiches Tyler brought from the bakery, Skye begins the intimidating task of sorting through her father’s books and papers while I stand in the master bedroom trying to overcome my reluctance to touch anything.

  It just feels too weird.

  I never understood how he could live in this house, sleep with another woman—or women—in this bed. And Kristin—why would she want to share a house with Mac’s history? Maybe it’s true that love makes fools of us all.

  The racks on the left side of the closet are empty except for a few naked hangers. That’s where my clothes used to hang, and then probably Kristin’s. On the right are his clothes, slacks and jackets and shirts, wool and linen, cotton and cashmere, all bearing the Italian designer labels he’d developed a taste for. Floor to ceiling shelves full of pullovers and T-shirts, and along the bottom, shoe racks with loafers and expensive running shoes, tennis shoes and deck shoes and flip flops, hiking boots with dried mud in the Vibram soles, rock climbing shoes soft as ballet slippers, and the custom made Paul Bond cowboy boots that he loved.

  On the end wall at the very back is a row of pegs where his collection of baseball caps resides, along with one knitted ski cap and a motorcycle helmet. How odd. I never knew him to ride a motorcycle.

  At first I fold everything, arranging it all in careful stacks, fitting things snugly into boxes so they won’t slide around.

  But after an hour or so the air in the closet has turned warm, my forehead is damp, breathing is an effort. Finishing becomes a higher priority than neatness. Pretty soon I’m pulling slacks off hangers, rolling them up, tossing them on top of everything else, along with belts, handkerchiefs and a few ties. I stuff socks and undershirts and boxer shorts into the gaps and pack it all down.

  I throw all the shoes into a box, then pull his ski parka off its hook and lay it flat on top. When I turn back to the rack there’s only one thing left. Hanging against the wall at the end of the rod is an old Harris Tweed sport coat, well worn and sporting a few moth holes. I recognize it immediately and reach for it without thinking, gathering the scratchy fabric in my hands, inhaling the peaty scent.

  When I met Mac, this was his only sport coat. He wore it whenever he needed to dress up his jeans. He wore it when he took me to dinner at the Queen City Grill in Seattle after Ellen and I sold the bakery. He wore it to New York after Alan sold his first book to Drummond. And he wore it against all my protests—it was out of season, out of style…he argued that it was a classic—the night we got married in my mother’s backyard.

  By the end of the week, the house is spotless and listed with Nancy Holland, real estate broker non pareil. She convinced me that leaving the furniture in place would make it more appealing, thus leading to a quicker sale, but even fully furnished, the rooms feel empty and strange.

  Legal papers have been reviewed, taxes paid, life insurance claims filed, bank accounts closed, safe deposit box emptied. Skye has dutifully initialed and signed and dated till her eyes glazed over. Her green legal size file folder bulges with copies.

  When I escape to the bakery a couple of afternoons I invite her to come with me, but she wants to nap, she says. Or read. Or go to the pool. I’m sure she also doesn’t want to see T
yler. It’s just as well. Work is my refuge and when I’m there, I don’t have to deal with her mood swings. Or my own.

  She seems content to spend the evenings watching TV or reading, plugged into her iPod, Charles glued to her side. It’s incredibly affecting, the way he sits and watches her, his little dog eyebrows knit together in concern.

  For her last night in L.A. I wanted to have a nice dinner with my mom and Richard, CM and Nathan, Tyler and János. But my mother and stepfather have gone back to Grass Valley, CM and Nathan are in New York, János is working and Tyler has unearthed a very important social engagement that precludes her joining us. Okay, fine. We can still have a nice dinner.

  I grill chicken breasts and serve them with mustard sauce (Alex’s recipe) a big green salad and some grilled country bread brushed with olive oil and garlic. Rafe’s apple tart is dessert. I drag out the Italian Majolica plates and my French crystal, buy cut flowers for the table. She doesn’t seem to notice any of it.

  I ask her to choose the wine, and she finds a lovely un-oaked Chardonnay from New Zealand. After dinner we linger on the patio, wrapped in fleece throws, while she explains more than I ever wanted to know about malolactic fermentation of chardonnay.

  “Sometimes only part of the blend goes through malolactic fermentation and then it’s put back in with the rest,” she concludes. “So the wine keeps its fruit, but holds the acidity down a bit.”

  “Where did you learn all that?”

  “I’ve been working weekends at the Silks tasting room the last two summers. I help set up the wine flights and the wine and cheese pairings. I’ve learned a lot from Josh…even if he is an Ozzie.”

  I nibble on a piece of smoky crust, kick off my sandals and pull Charles up on my lap. One of my neighbors is having a party, but the noises seem dreamlike and far away.

  I’m just about to ask another question about the winery when she blindsides me.

  “What happened with you and him? Why didn’t it work?”

  Since that first awkward evening, our conversations have focused on relatively safe topics…school, politics, food, wine, films, travel, music, city vs. country life, dogs vs. cats. She’s demonstrated sheep shearing technique on a patient Charles and I’ve showed her how to knead and shape bread dough. We’ve talked about Mac, but thus far our discussion has been confined to historical fact. Now I decide to keep it light.